Chapter 5 #2
Somehow, I could never be good enough and True's text feels like there's an unwritten addendum hanging between us at the end that reads 'mom was right about you, I should have never trusted you with my children.'
I don't want to read those words ever again, but I kind of have to be able to talk to Trudy and Lincoln so I have to open the thread again some time.
I'll just open it up and type in a new message to push the hateful word off the screen so I won't have to see them anymore.
I hold my breath as I open the messages, biting my lip to stave off the hurt with the sharp sting of a pain I can control.
Except when I open the thread now, Trudy's angry message isn't there anymore, just a note that Trudy unsent a message.
In one sense, it's a relief to see she took it back.
In another, it feels almost worse, like she's denying the hurt she caused.
Those words are still seared into my memory, indelible as scars, no matter how much she regrets sending them now.
I try to convince myself that she didn't mean them and it was the worry about Marina talking, since she took them back, but I can't quite get there. I can't make myself trust that she's got my back the way she always has in the past.
She might regret sending it in a text like that, but I know she meant it at the time. There's a line I can cross to lose her, and I can do that even if it's an accident. So I send another pointless apology.
Gillian: I can't tell you both how sorry I am.
Lincoln: To the contrary, you already have, Gillian. Apology accepted. Again. Marina is fine.
Gillian: I just keep thinking I should have acted faster, or warned her not to play hide and hunt with other kid's toys or something. Anything.
Lincoln: Stop rehashing it, little one. You did as much as we can reasonably expect. I knew that even before I started getting more calls checking on Marina.
Lincoln: The pool manager reached out to me just now with her version of events.
So along with the medic, the raven shifter responsible for the bear shifter child, and two of the lifeguards on duty, that's five other shifters all telling us you acted immediately and likely prevented worse injuries for both children involved in the incident.
I bite my lip. The urge to argue that I messed up is absurd, but it feels natural.
Maybe it’s not Trudy who believes all the times our mother told me everything is my fault, maybe that thought is coming from a part of me.
Another part of me is prickling with anxiety that my sister's mate is being so kind to me when she's upset at me and wondering if that will only drive a deeper wedge between us.
My octopus wants to coil up in a nice cozy hide until it feels safer to exist. I tap furiously at my phone screen as tears burn my eyes.
Hiding from this problem won't make it go away. I’m still dependent on my sister's support, at least until I have the money to move out of her home. I don’t have enough saved, not yet. Fuck.
Gillian: Maybe you forgive me, but True still hates me.
I stare at the message and sniffle back tears.
I should delete it, not whine about how unfair it is that my sister is mad at me when I'm the one who let Marina down.
Will True see the parts I left out, the way I could read more into her message?
How she should hate me because Mom was right about me?
I swipe away my tears at the same time as I stretch my thumb toward the delete key on the screen, and stare in horror as a fat warm tear drips right onto the send button and the message whooshes straight to Lincoln's eyeballs. Fuck. My. Life.
I close the message app and search for a better place to hide.
There...the tub. I turn the taps to the hottest setting my octopus side will tolerate and fill the tub with water and a few scoops of salt crystals designed to be safe for my skin in both forms. It smells sort of like kelp, which is more pleasant in my aquatic form.
I want to shift and just sink beneath the water for a while to tune out reality, except I'm afraid if I do that right now I won't ever want to shift back into this form.
I want to scream, or blare my music so loud it vibrates deep in my bones.
I want to find another shifter who will fuck away all my worries until my human form feels as utterly boneless as my octopus.
I want...I want to gaze into those dark smiling eyes while Winny tells me exactly what to do.
I want someone who can take away all the choices so I can't screw anything up, so nothing that goes wrong can be my fault, at least for a little while.
I want her to tell me exactly what to do, and make me feel exactly how she wants me to feel and…I want to teach her every color of pleasure and taste every inch of her with my sensitive suckers, inside and out.
I shiver at the thought and it takes me a moment to realize that three of my extra octopus arms are acting out the fantasy on their own because I let the partial shift spread enough that the independent mini-brains controlling them are all too eager in response to my need.
The tapered tips of two are nudging past the stretchy waistband of my pants, thinning and elongating as they inch along my thighs, exploring tantalizingly close to my pussy without quite getting to the sensitive areas I want them to caress.
"Please," I gasp. Then I wince and glance at the ceiling.
I might be in the basement, but sound carries strangely with the way the vents are connected between this bathroom and the one in Lincoln and Trudy's room.
Especially if they're in the large tub in their octopus forms where they’re sensitive to any stray vibrations.
Tides. I need more privacy than I'm ever going to have living under my sister's roof.
I fumble for my phone and play the first pop music playlist my music app offers me to cover any noises I might make.
I still need to be circumspect if I want to get off without bothering my sister and her husband, but now that I've started, this feels like exactly the release I need to get any rest tonight.
The best way to let go of guilt, shame, and borrowed worries.
Maybe I can't have the entire fantasy, but I can have a few moments to play out the pretense of someone else taking charge and wanting all of me.
I can stop reliving my worst fears on repeat.
I whimper as one of my arms, not quite under my voluntary control, but acting on the fantasy of my ideal lover, drags rows of suckers over my chest, teasing my nipples into tight peaks.
My body goes taut, entirely tuned to pleasure as I reach the fingers of my human hand to pinch and twist one.
I whimper at the sting of pain, and admire the rich mauve coloring that deepens with each dragging pull of my suckers and every twist of my fingers.
Mm. I can just imagine my pretend lover commenting on the exact hue my dusky nipples turn as they stiffen.
I wonder if my fantasy lover would make me beg for this kind of attention. I can almost hear her rich throaty voice demanding more of me. She'd say it in that same tone that Winny used earlier to whisper in my ear. That fulsome voice teasing me with filthy promises she couldn't possibly mean.
"That's it, harder, pinch until you cry out, I want to see all your colors." I can't quite mimic the tone, but the words still send a thrill straight to my core as I obey. "Just like that. Good girl."
Oh, oh tides, yes the surge of wetness that pulses over the arm probing between my thighs makes me gasp and arch, and I smack my head on the door.
"Ow." I snort at myself and mutter under my breath. The spell of the imagined voice urging me on is irrevocably broken now, too far-fetched to even play at having for real. "Yeah, I'm sure the woman you barely met would love watching you make an abject fool of yourself, Gillian."
Feeling self-conscious and sorry for my pitiful self, I strip out of my clothes, grab my favorite waterproof vibrator from its hiding place at the back of the cabinet under the sink and get in the tub to finish what I started.
I'm too turned on to sleep easily at this point, and I'm too tangled up and embarrassed about dragging a stranger into my fantasy to pick up where I left off.
Ugh now it feels like a chore to finish.
I climb into the tub with a clear plan. I'm going to fuck myself with my toy and my suckers until I get off, shift fully into my octopus form for the night, and forget about today entirely. Maybe my world won't feel quite so close to shattering in the morning.
Except I can't even manage that much, because I'm about to push the tip of the toy inside when my phone buzzes and, like an idiot, I stop with my vibrator poised against my pussy lips as I scramble to grab my phone.
So I can check if my sister replied to confirm she does in fact hate me.
Of course that's what any rational person would do, right?
Might as well get the most devastating news possible with my pussy full of pulsing silicon.
I open the message even as I mentally deride myself for being a total shipwreck. I do a doubletake before I realize the new message is not from Trudy.
Or Lincoln. Nope. The new message is from the shifter I was just fantasizing about.
Winny, who I entered into my contacts with a reminder not to make a fool of myself with her that my horny brain completely ignored. Fuck. Me. I bite my lip as I re-read the message.
Ms. Too Perfect for You: Hey, Gillian. I'm checking in to be sure you're alright after everything at the pool earlier.
Yeah, she is definitely concerned about me. I might just swoon. I can't remember the last time someone checked in on me like this. Not as an afterthought or small talk, but genuine caring. It can't be real.